Getting Through
by Secunda Valeria
Summary: Twenty-five years after the triumphs and tragedies of 1920 Mary and Tom reflect. Inspired by other high quality works by other fans, and the events of Series 3.


**Getting Through**

The fireworks from the village kept on well past mid-night with no sign of ending. Squeals, cheers, and laughter from revelers around the country filled every field, stream, and grove around Downton. Sir Tom, not Thomas because he hated the pretensions the name implied, swirled the whiskey in the tumbler one more time before drinking it down. A brilliant silver-white explosion illuminated the landscape around the mansion. It had been too long a war, and it was over in Europe. Oh the Japanese fought on, but everyone knew the end was near there as well. The people had a right to celebrate, no matter how late it went on.

Tom opened his pocket watch where he lingered over Sybil's smiling image. After all these years he could still smell her hair, or the way her skin felt after a bath. "My angel." He brushed a kiss onto his fingertips before holding them over the photo.

More than a quarter century had passed since that awful night, the night before the morning after; when his world had crashed to ruin, and the one element that all humans need, need more than air, more than water, hope, had left him. When he lost her he was a broken, shattered man; alone, with only Sybbie to keep him going.

He sat at the same desk Lord Grantham had once used to welcome him to Downton. He unlaced his shoes and sighed with relief as he wiggled his toes. The things were too new, too stiff, the leather was subpar, and took longer to break in. The library door opened slowly. He heard Mary's dress rustling toward him. "I'm going to have to oil and stretch these." He showed her. "We're to visit the County wounded at the American Evacuation hospital in Ripon tomorrow. We'll be on our feet all day."

Mary pulled the light on over a sofa. "You could have Thomas do it for you."

"No one dresses me but me." He rubbed the side of his foot with his other one.

Mary stepped behind him. The light of a white star shell illuminated Tom's hands. She saw the open watch and squeezed his shoulders. "And you only planned being here two years." She kissed the top of his head.

"You never get jealous of her, do you?" Tom looked up.

Mary squeezed the edges of Tom's shoulders. "Are you ever jealous of Matthew?" She answered his question with her own. Just as she answered in the same way, time and time before.

Tom's silence was answer enough to both questions.

Mary tapped his shoulder. "We've a busy next couple of days. When are you coming to bed?"

"Soon, I wanted a minute with her." Tom glanced up. "I know she'd love Ron." Tom took Mary's hand. "She'd be happy, about Sybbie, Ron, it all."

Mary knelt next to Tom and rested her head on his lap. "My loving husband; Yes, Yes she would. She never doubted the goodness in anyone. Thank god for Sybbie and William."

Tom started giggling.

Mary looked up. "What?" She smiled.

"Do you recall how Sybbie couldn't say William?"

Mary smiled. "She could only get out 'Whim'. Later we picked it up. She'd sit by his crib for hours cooing 'Whim', 'Whim'".

She closed her eyes as he massaged her neck.

Mary took his hand and gazed out at the darkened grounds of Downton. "We haven't done too bad have we Tom: Sybbie married; At least Ron's not going to have to fly against Japan but he's taking her back to Kansas, of all the places."

Tom caressed her cheek. "As soon as we can we'll visit, maybe during a Parliamentary break. I'd like to see this prairie he keeps talking about." Tom yawned. He thought of his god-son. "Whim'll be home soon love. Don't worry."

Mary's back suddenly straightened. "I can understand him wanting to do his bit, but 2 Commando? Couldn't you have tried to talk him out of it?" Mary pretended to be miffed, still.

Tom shrugged. "Matthew wouldn't have wanted to stand in his way, you know that. Whim has to be his own man. Just like his father."

Mary sighed. "Then there are YOUR twins at Wadham. A pair of ginger-headed firebrands. She tried to sound annoyed but could not contain her pride. "Keiran and Matthew have far too much of you in them for me to take any parental credit."

"Ripping up the social fabric are they?" Tom stuffed his watch into his vest pocket. "Oxford needed some life injected into it."

"Tom Branson, two boys rappelling down Radcliffe Camera to hang a banner reading 'No South African Apartheid' over Bodleien Library goes beyond 'injecting some life.' It was dangerous, a silly Left wing prank." She tried to sound put off – but how could she. They were as much hers as his. Besides she admired the stunt too; it's just that she would never admit it to him.

"Yes all true, but they won that bet. Napier's kid said they'd never do it." Tom sighed. "Toughest thing I ever did to them."

Mary smiled admiringly. "I know. I could see how it hurt you. It was all I could do to keep from laughing as you stood in front of the Warden whilst announcing their penance with a humble face." She shook her head. "I still don't think you fooled them a bit. And poor Edith, suspending her book tour to lobby Wadham College to keep them enrolled." She rolled her eyes again. "Like I said, they've too much of their father in them."

Tom stood. "Aye, but they have your looks, and that's a fair trade." He lifted Mary into his arms. His wife gazed into his eyes. She was about to say something but he hushed her. "We've made a family out of the ashes, let's be proud of what we've built."

Mary lay her head on Tom's shoulder. "I don't deserve such happiness." She always loved it when he danced her around the library. "It's been exciting Tom."

Tom looked askance. "What part, saving Downton, the boys, Sybbie and Whim, or the politics?"

Mary pushed away enough to look directly at him. "I could do without that. That shooter in York was not part of the plan. I was never so worried as I was since Matthew."

Doctor Clarkson said Tom had been lucky the assassin from the IRA missed his heart. "Papa was so impressed with you when you insisted on visiting the poor grocer who stopped the bullet a couple days later. I think that's when he finally realized nobility resides in us all; it's not only inherited." She lifted her lips to his.

They swayed together silently dancing, each lost in memories: Losing Sybil, then Matthew. The children had been the glue that cemented their fates, as well as their salvation. At first it started as mutual visits to the nursery, lavishing attentions on their babies. They watched as William bonded to Tom and Sybbie to Mary. There wasn't a sneeze or cough that did not worry them both, each one taking turns in rotating vigils, as a devoted couple would. Even as Mary was courted by suitors wealthy, and titled, or when any one of a number of women tried to sink their hooks into Tom's rising star, they barely noticed how much closer they were moving into the other's orbit.

Until a picnic one day lifted her veil. William ran to Tom after being stung by a wasp, crying to be held. She knew fate had made her decision easy. That was the first time she looked at Tom with loving eyes.

Tom dipped her slightly to finish the dance.

She kissed him again.  
"What's that for?" Tom grinned.

She stayed comfortably in his arms. "For all of it."

As Tom led Mary around the sofa the dowager Countess poked her head in to the library. "Robert? Are you in there?" Mary flinched.

Tom cast a sideways glance to his mother in law, "Lady Cora, how nice to see you."

Mary looked at her mother. "Mama, Papa died last year. Remember?"

The Countess stood inside the room. Confused and dazed she embraced Mary. "Oh Mary. It's so good to see you again; and Branson have you brought the car around?"

Mary's shoulders sagged.

Tom stepped forward. "But you live here my lady."

Cora caught herself as she was about to reply, stopped, seemed to recognize where she was and sighed. "Oh Tom, I keep forgetting. I woke up. I wondered how I ever managed dinner in my bed clothes." She smiled, taking his arm. "I'm afraid I've been forgetting things lately." She flushed with embarrassment.

"Well, we'll all just have to help you recall." Tom reassured.

The nurse came to collect Cora. "I'm sorry Sir Tom, my lady. I turned for a minute to get something from the cabinet and she was off." She reached for Cora's hand.

"Mary, please tell your father I've gone to bed." Cora said over her shoulder as the nurse led her to the elevator.

Mary ran a hand over her head while reaching for his shoulder as she had done countless times before. "Oh Tom."

He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her into a close embrace. "We'll get through this the same way we've faced everything else: Together."

##


End file.
